Elizabeth Davies: Ah, working in the peace and quiet

Elizabeth Davies

Friday

Aug 29, 2008 at 12:01 AMAug 29, 2008 at 8:22 PM

There was a time when I couldn’t imagine working in silence. Journalists learn very early on to be productive even with beeping police monitors, ringing telephones and chattering television anchors in the background. But things changed for me three years ago, when I agreed to do the unthinkable and work from home.

There was a time when I couldn’t imagine working in silence.

Journalists learn very early on to be productive even with beeping police monitors, ringing telephones and chattering television anchors in the background. Over the years, I came to love that noise and the various interruptions that come with working in a newsroom. I was quick to bounce ideas off others, and quicker still to throw in my two cents when someone wanted to brainstorm.

At the Rockford Register Star I spent many years sitting between the Sports section and the Life&Style folks. The conversations there were fantastic: If Michael Jordan were to star in a movie, would it be an action-adventure or romantic comedy? Is bowling a sport? What about badminton?

When an outgoing, people-person friend of mine told me that she was going to start working from home, I thought she was crazy. What could be worse than being trapped alone all day long? Who would she talk to?

“I can talk to people on the phone and on e-mail,” she said. “And I get to wear sweatpants every day.”

Tempting as an elastic waistband can be, I still didn’t see the appeal. Why bother getting dressed in the morning if you weren’t going to work? Who would you go to lunch with? And really, what fun is a work day without a trip to the vending machine, or a piece of slightly-stale cake from someone’s party the night before?

But things changed for me three years ago, when I agreed to do the unthinkable and work from home. I worried whether I would become a procrastinator, the kind of person who put off working until there really was nothing worth watching on TV anymore. I wondered if my productivity would shrink. I thought of sinking into an isolated depression, with no one around to talk to about it.

What I found is that there’s a reason why working from home has become so popular in recent years. More than 10 million Americans now commute all the way from the bedroom to the home office, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics.

They might not have office basketball pools, but at-home workers have benefits of their own.

First of all, there are no Friday morning doughnuts to derail a perfectly good diet. No midweek luncheons, no drinks after work, no appetizers with the drinks.

And, perhaps surprisingly, I was actually more productive at home. There were no spur-of-the-moment brainstorming sessions, mandatory staff meetings or long-winded phone calls about how the answer to Six Across on the crossword puzzle actually should have been “Charlie Brown.” When I started something, I could actually finish it.

I also learned to work without background noise. In fact, the one time I tried to work from the newsroom again, I found myself constantly distracted. "How does anyone get any work done around here?" I thought.

There are downsides to working from home, of course. I almost never buy cute high heels anymore because I don’t have anywhere to wear them. And, as expected, it can get a little lonely. My poor husband gets his ear talked off for the first hour he’s home in the evening.

If you’re going to work from home, expect that you won’t keep regular office hours. Sure, I can renew my driver’s license in the middle of the day. But I also send off at least five e-mails before 6 a.m. each morning – including Saturdays – and I clear my inbox before heading to bed every night.

I’ve been woken by late-night phone calls from people who assume they’re just leaving a voicemail in an empty office cubicle. And I’ve taken phone calls while simultaneously chasing a toddler through the aisles of Target.

But never did my work arrangement seem more ideal than when I became a mother. Suddenly, I could be at home with my child while earning a paycheck at the same time.

Some days, I wonder whether work-at-home moms have the toughest job of all. We don’t get lunch hours or breaks during naptime – that’s when we go into fast-paced professional mode – and we have to get creative when it comes to getting things done.

It’s not unusual to see me heading into the gym with tennis shoes and a laptop in tow so that I can get some work done while my little one is being watched in the gym’s day care. It’s also fairly common to trade babysitting services with other working moms. And there’s nothing like actually scheduling and paying for a babysitter so that you can make that one, uber-important phone call – just to have the person on the other end of the phone forget the appointment.

Ultimately, the juggling act is worthwhile. I get to be a mom all day, and I also get to think about things other than Pampers and building blocks every so often.

And I’ve come to find that listening to Elmo’s World while you work really isn’t so bad.

Elizabeth Davies' column appears in the Rockford Register Star.

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